This week, we'll be taking a break from our Extension Spotlight series. Don't worry though; we'll be back next week with another great extension to add new features to your installation.

One of the most frustrating things in the world is not being able to reach your customers. It's even worse if you can't reach them because you're hitting the concurrent sessions limit on your license (it's somewhat akin to tying up every phone line in your building). Luckily, ScreenConnect has an easy and very simple method to boot a fellow technician without ruining their workflow. See the YouTube video below.

With this bit of knowledge, you should always be able to open up a concurrent session when you need it.

For the past several weeks, we've been exploring some exciting new features that can be added to your ScreenConnect installation via extensions. Thus far, we explored a couple methods to enhance the appearance of your ScreenConnect installation. Today, we'll be continuing that trend.

Admittedly, the ScreenConnect web interface throws a lot of information at you at once. This is especially true for the Host Page, where you're greeted with the 3 seperate informational panels containing session information. Have you ever wanted to temporarily clear some space in order to better view the list of sessions? An available extension by the name of "Expand and Minimize Host Page Panels" does just that.

When the extension is installed, two new buttons are added at the panel borders. Clicking either of these buttons will cause the panel to temporarily move towards the edge of the window, leaving you with more screen real estate to view the session list.

The extension can be especially useful when used on mobile platforms. Because screen real estate is such a valuable resource, moving panels can make navigating a list of sessions much easer. Below, an example is provided of the extension when used on an iPhone 6+.

As always, you have access to the extension's source code. Feel free to install, clone, and modify the extension as you see fit. Have an interesting modificaiton or addition to the extension? Share it with the community via our forum or by publishing to the Online Extension Browser.

Disclaimer: This extension was written by our support team (and in some cases in conjunction with our forum community) in response to customer requests. Extensions are meant to be quick workarounds or immediate solutions to problems. Extensions are not supported under our normal terms of service, as these extensions are outside typical Q/A or development guidelines. Questions for extensions should be addressed in their respective forum posts. Suggestions for improvements (enhancements or defects) should also be queued in the proper post for consideration.

Today, we return to our series highlighting Extensions available in ScreenConnect.

One interesting fact about extensions is that they can contain .resx resource files. This means that multiple localizations can be implemented via extensions! In order to faciliatate the production of these resource files, an extension exists. The Translation Extension Builder acts as a helper extension, assisting with the production of new translations for ScreenConnect.

When the Translation Extension Builder is installed, a new option is available at the bottom of the extensions page: "Create Translation Extension". Choosing this new option will start the translation process.

Select the language you wish to translate into, your author name, and the extension's version (this will default to 1.0). Keep in mind, most languages have the option of a generic translation or a specific, regional version; choose your "Culture" option accordingly. Once your initial options are configured, you can choose to create the extension and return later or immediately jump into the resource editor.

The resource editor is formatted in similar fashion to the base resource string tables available within the Appearance menu. For your new translation, just provide the translated equivalents in the righthand boxes. For those with existing translations that have been implemented by placing the files directly on the server, it might also be possible to copy/paste directly into the resource files' XML as well (Note: this will depend on what version your exisiting translation was originally made for).

Translation extensions function by detecting the user's Operating System and Web Broweser language settings. Your users and guests should automatically view their configured language when visiting the web interface for you ScreenConnect installation. Implement any number of translations you want, including those currently in the Online Extension Browser. By using multiple translations, you can ensure that all visitors to your site can view it with their respective language.

Disclaimer: This extension was written by our support team (and in some cases in conjunction with our forum community) in response to customer requests. Extensions are meant to be quick workarounds or immediate solutions to problems. Extensions are not supported under our normal terms of service, as these extensions are outside typical Q/A or development guidelines. Questions for extensions should be addressed in their respective forum posts. Suggestions for improvements (enhancements or defects) should also be queued in the proper post for consideration.

To kick off our blogs in 2015, we're returning to our series spotlighting Extensions available in ScreenConnect. Over the next several weeks, we'll be touching on our growing list of extensions. If you haven't viewed the available extensions yet, go look right now! The list is constantly growing and adding cool new features to your existing ScreenConnect installation. Today, we'll be looking at the List Published Sessions extension.

With the release of version 5.0, published session formatting was converted from a group of listed sessions to a single drop down menu. There's an example below:

The aim of the new formatting was to provide a more compact Guest Page, eliminating clutter that might confuse your guest. However, some users may have a strong affinity for the previous formatting and wish to revert, or at least implement a very similar List view. Luckily, there's an extension that implements a similar style.

With the List Published Sessions extension installed, any Published sessions now display in a row on the Guest Page. The extension strikes a happy medium between compacting the Guest Page and providing the listed session formatting preferred by some users.

If your preference is for Listed sessions over the drop down menu, give it a try! Remember, as with any extension, you can clone and modify the source code. It can all be modified, meaning you can easily change the CSS if you want to make slight tweaks to the looks of the extension.

Disclaimer: This extension was written by our support team (and in some cases in conjunction with our forum community) in response to customer requests. Extensions are meant to be quick workarounds or immediate solutions to problems. Extensions are not supported under our normal terms of service, as these extensions are outside typical Q/A or development guidelines. Questions for extensions should be addressed in their respective forum posts. Suggestions for improvements (enhancements or defects) should also be queued in the proper post for consideration.

Do you have your ScreenConnect web server externally accessible from a link on your main site? Are you curious how traffic is being directed to your ScreenConnect Guest Page? You can now analyze your traffic using Google Analytics.

Using this extension, it's possible to view the "where, when, what, and how" of each visit to your ScreenConnect Guest Page. With this knowledge, you can begin to better cater to your customer and direct traffic accordingly.

Disclaimer: This extension was written by our support team (and in some cases in conjunction with our forum community) in response to customer requests. Extensions are meant to be quick workarounds or immediate solutions to problems. Extensions are not supported under our normal terms of service, as these extensions are outside typical Q/A or development guidelines. Questions for extensions should be addressed in its respective forum post. Suggestions for improvements (enhancements or defects) should also be queued in the post for consideration.

For those of you which have already been utilizing custom themes in ScreenConnect, we've got a small but very useful modification that's worth trying out. This one was passed to our support team by a wonderful customer. Try adding the following to your custom theme:

tr:nth-child(odd) {
background-color: #444;
}

The exact color you choose to use for the background color is likely to vary according to your theme and how dramatic you want to make the effect. However, this should enable much easier reading of tables (on the Host page and within menus on the Admin page) as shown below.

If you think you have another useful modification that could benefit the community, feel free to share it with us! Visit our forum and spread your bit of genius with us and fellow ScreenConnect users.

As many of you are already aware, extensions are coming to ScreenConnect. For those still unfamiliar, the addition of extensions will bring modular pieces of code to the vanilla product. Enabling or disabling feature sets at will becomes possible with extensions, and we've covered a few of the internally developed extensions within this blog over the past few weeks.

What we're particularly excited to share it that we're hard at work creating all the tools necessary for you to make your own extensions! Right now, those testing the pre-release of version 5.0 can download the Extension Developer from our online extension browser. Yes, our development tools are actually an extension. Once downloaded, you can create your own extensions, view the source for existing extensions, and clone existing projects to use as your template.

We've also begun working on our documentation, although it's far less polished than our developer tools at this point. You can find what we have so far here. It's far from complete at this point, but we're making regular contributions. I recommend viewing the "Extensions Guide" first. You can also view some of our other pages in construction such as the JavaScript API (work in progress).

We also appreciate any feedback from the community on our development tools and documentation going forward. The point of adding development resources to ScreenConnect is to increase your customizing abilites. Make it your own!

If you're a regular Kaspersky user, you've likely noticed abnormal and frustrating behavior when using ScreenConnect. The antivirus software allows the download of any ScreenConnect client software. However, once inside the session, it's not possible to control any Kaspersky-related windows or settings. This results in any antivirus prompt disrupting service to customers. Fortunately, there's a potential fix to the situation for organizations that disperse the software.

For Kaspersky users that distribute the software en-masse, it's possible to add a rule to exclude ScreenConnect files. This prevents the software from accidentally flagging any ScreenConnect files within the software, circumventing the known issues. A demonstration on how to achieve this can be found here. These rules can be pushed out from a central location to many computers at once.

We recognize that this particular setting doesn't apply to everyone's use of Kaspersky, and we're actively working to provide an all-encompasing solution. We've reached out to Kaspersky several times, without response. We encourage any users who are experiencing this loss of functionality to log a request with Kaspersky. We'll keep you posted on any progress as well.

It's our pleasure to announce that ScreenConnect will be going to the cloud. To be clear, this is not a new product. We're simply adding an alternative to the exisitng self-hosted solution by rolling distribution into a hassle-free service. We've developed this solution for those wanting to try ScreenConnect without the need to self-host, or for those who are unable to host ScreenConnect in their environment.

Many of the specific details will be announced in the following weeks. But, here's what you need to know for now:

Coming Q4 2014, we will begin rolling out ScreenConnect Cloud. We're expecting the official release to come in Q4, but we're looking for current and trialing customers to try out the new service right now. If you want the opportunity to test your own instance of the new cloud service, email our sales team at sales@screenconnect.com to request invitaiton to the program, including "ScreenConnect Cloud" in the Subject line. We have a limited number of slots and can't guarantee availability, so request your position in the program ASAP.

This is a very excited time here at ScreenConnect, and we can't wait to bring you further details on the program!